2. ASSOCIATE DIGITAL DIRECTOR Karen Lee
COPY EDITORS Heidi Beck, Joyce Thomas
ART DIRECTOR & DESIGN Tricia Seibold
PHOTOGRAPHY Elena Zhukova
COVER ILLUSTRATION Christopher DeLorenzo
contents
[04]
Great Leaders Understand the Fundamentals
Managers are often chosen for reasons other than competence
by Elizabeth MacBride
[07]
How to “Lean In” to Power
Power skills and behaviors matter for career success
by Jeffrey Pfeffer
[10]
Three Things All Good Bosses Do
Pay attention to these issues and watch productivity go up
by Kathryn Shaw
Video: Beth Rimbey // Editor: Karen Lee
4. 4
Great Leaders Understand
the Fundamentals
Managers are often chosen for reasons other than competence.
C
by Elizabeth MacBride
Conventional wisdom has it that a leader’s most important
qualities are personality traits like charisma, likeability, or an
air of command. But new research from Stanford Graduate
School of Business suggests something more fundamental
helps teams perform well: a leader’s plain old competence at
the task at hand.
Choosing leaders because of charisma or management skill
has its benefits, but leaders still need to understand and be
able to excel at the actual tasks their team members do, from
accounting to engineering to marketing.
“We romanticize the charismatic CEO,” says Lindred Greer, a
professor of organizational behavior at Stanford GSB.
But a good leader has earned his or her stripes, she says.
The new research points to the importance of hiring and
promoting leaders based on objective assessments and data
— like assessment tests — rather than just political skill or the
ability of a candidate to make a good impression, the researchers
concluded. The research team included Greer and Murat
Tarakci and Patrick Groenen of Erasmus University Rotterdam.
The research was published in Journal of Applied Psychology.
Their series of studies included a computer simulation, a lab
study, and a field study of the work of 49 teams comprising
5. 5
1,126 employees of a publicly held Dutch company. They
found that teams where the leaders had a high level of skill
at the task at hand converged more rapidly on solutions.
For instance, in the case of the Dutch company, which was
working on auditing finances in search of tax evasion and
fraud, the best leaders were those most skilled at the
audit work.
Most surprising, the researchers found, was that 45% of
the time team members picked leaders for reasons other
than competence, such as the person’s age, dominance, or
perceived power level.
The researchers also examined whether it’s better to have a
flat organizational structure or a hierarchical one and in what
circumstances. Previous researchers on power in teams have
drawn different conclusions. On one hand, hierarchies help
by supporting divisions of labor and clarifying roles. On the
other hand, hierarchies can hurt performance because they
encourage political and competitive behavior.
Greer’s team found a nuanced result: Hierarchy helps when
leaders are competent at the task at hand and when the
hierarchy itself is dynamic — in other words, when the team
can replace the leader if necessary. When either one of those
factors was in place, having a hierarchy improved team
performance; when both factors were in place, hierarchies
helped most of all.
The researchers suggested three takeaways for managers building
teams or boards choosing CEOs to lead executive teams.
WHO IS THE MOST COMPETENT?
A strong hierarchical structure can help a team, but make
sure it’s easy to identify the competence of the team
members, so that choice of leader is based at least in part on
task competence.
EXPECT POWER SHIFTS
It helps to make the leadership fluid, so that when the tasks
change, the most competent person can assume the
leadership position. As a corollary, team members need to be
willing to allow power to shift. So, a hierarchical team
structure with a group of ambitious alphas may not work.
“Having employees who always wish to be the smartest
person in the room will make for ineffective hierarchies, and
humility can pay dividends,” the researchers wrote.
HELP TEAM MEMBERS APPRECIATE EACH OTHER
Managers should also help team members understand the
unique skills all members bring to the team with, for example,
job-crafting — having members engage in a collaborative
discussion to clarify skills and roles within the team. By helping
members identify and understand the different competences
members bring to the team, it will be easier for them to shift
power within the team when task requirements change.
Without that fluidity, conflicts emerge, as ill-suited leaders
breed resentment among followers and cause hierarchies to
be sources of contention. In those cases, the researchers
concluded, egalitarian structures are likely to be better.
We romanticize the
charismatic CEO.
– Lindred Greer
7. 7
by Jeffrey Pfeffer
I
How to “Lean In” to Power
Power skills and behaviors matter for career success
It’s not just women or Asian Americans who sometimes have
trouble doing things such as advocating for themselves and
their accomplishments, negotiating for salary and job
responsibilities rather than just accepting what employers
offer, networking, and not obsessively worrying about being
liked — all things that bring increased power. Many people
are uncomfortable with power and the behaviors required to
obtain it. That’s a big problem, because research shows that
power skills and behaviors matter for career success.
Florida State professor Gerald Ferris and colleagues have
carefully developed and validated a political skills inventory
(available at www.jeffreypfeffer.com with Ferris’ permission)
that people can use to assess themselves (or better yet, have
others assess them) on a set of political skills that include
networking ability, social astuteness, apparent sincerity,
and interpersonal influence. More importantly, Ferris and
others have conducted numerous studies over the years
that demonstrate the relationship between political skill
and career success and also political skill and group
performance.
Contrary to what you may think, good job performance is not
going to be enough to rocket your career ahead. After all, the
8. 8
numerous studies that show salary and promotions are
affected by things such as race and gender, educational
credentials, and years of experience — none of which are
dimensions of job performance — make the point that the
world is not always a just and fair place and it takes more than
doing a good job to be successful.
In my Paths to Power class and my book Power: Why Some
People Have It — and Others Don’t, I encourage people to
take actions that are likely to increase their power and, as a
consequence, their careers:
NETWORK
Spend more time building social relationships. Figure out
who in your company, industry, and in even more distant and
diverse environments might be helpful in your career. Make a
list of those people and prioritize it. Then figure out a way to
meet those people, ranging from “cold” emails to facilitated
introductions to finding common organizations (including
nonprofits) where you might connect. Take on small but
important tasks that can put you at the center of communication
networks. Ascertain which people or groups might benefit
from being connected — and connect them (the technical
term for this is filling structural holes, and Ronald Burt at
the University of Chicago makes available network diagnostic
tools). And most importantly, recognize that weak ties are
more valuable for job performance and careers than stronger
relationships. That’s because weak ties provide you
nonredundant information, while the people to whom you
are most strongly tied, close friends and colleagues, probably
know approximately the same things and the same people as
you do. Therefore, they do not add as much additional value.
BUILD PERSONAL QUALITIES
Energy, the ability to tolerate conflict, the capacity to see
others’ points of view and interests, resilience, and ambition,
among others, are qualities that produce power. To accomplish
this journey of personal development and growth, find a
coach, a peer, or create a small “personal board of directors”
of 3 to 5 individuals who are not likely to be competitive
with you to provide you advice and counsel — and hold you
accountable — on your self-assessment of strengths and
weaknesses and your plans to build the qualities that you
need more of.
LEARN HOW TO ACT AND SPEAK WITH POWER
Body language is important, because we form impressions of
others quickly and then subsequently assimilate information
based on these first impressions. Use emotion-producing,
vivid language and stories to convey your message. Use
forceful, powerful gestures. Speak loudly and don’t raise your
voice at the end of statements, implying a question rather
than an assertion. To build your skills, get an acting, voice,
or language coach if you need help, and find situations where
you can practice.
CHALLENGE CONVENTION
Understand and then act on the insight that (particularly if
you are an underdog), breaking the rules — which are, after
all mostly set by those in power — is essential to winning.
This idea was explored in Malcolm Gladwell’s wonderful
New Yorker article, “How David Beats Goliath.” Moreover,
since the powerful have the discretion to not conform to
social conventions, breaking the rules can signal — and
thereby create — power.
People often seem to believe that political skill is something
one has as part of his or her personality — like the master
politician, the late President Lyndon B. Johnson, as so
beautifully described in the set of biographical books by
Robert Caro — or not. But that is not true. Without for a
moment denying the existence of individual differences,
political skill, like virtually all skills, can be improved through
practice and coaching. So don’t accept your current set of
strengths and weaknesses or for that matter your current
tastes and preferences as fixed and enduring.
Building power and influence skills is not about changing who
you are or becoming someone else. It is about adding a set of
activities and skills to your repertoire to become more effective
and successful. So stop making excuses and get on with it.
Building power and influence
skills is not about changing who
you are or becoming someone else.
– Jeffrey Pfeffer
9. Good ideas
come from anywhere.
Empower
peopleat all levels of the organization
to put forward ideas.
Philippe Dauman, President, CEO, and Chairman, Viacom
10. 10
by Kathryn Shaw
A
Three Things
All Good Bosses Do
Pay attention to these issues and watch productivity go up.
A GOOD BOSS CAN MAKE A BIG DIFFERENCE. BUT WHAT
MAKES A SUPERVISOR EFFECTIVE? STANFORD GRADUATE
SCHOOL OF BUSINESS PROFESSOR OF ECONOMICS KATHRYN
SHAW FOUND THAT STRONG MANAGERS USE SIMILAR
STRATEGIES AND HAVE A LASTING POSITIVE IMPACT ON THE
CAREERS OF THEIR EMPLOYEES. HERE’S HOW THEY DO IT.
Q&A Video Transcript (edited by Karen Lee):
DO GOOD BOSSES REALLY INCREASE PRODUCTIVITY?
There are bad bosses out there, but what’s not talked about as
much is there are also good bosses. What we sought out to do
was to find out whether you could measure the productivity
of individual employees and see if productivity really rose
for individual employees if they happen to be working with
a good boss.
We gathered data on workers’ productivity and found there
was a big effect from a good boss relative to a bad boss. What
we got access to was data on what we call technology-based
service workers who have their performance timed and that
enabled us to measure their productivity.
So, the foundation of the study is productivity. How many
customers they treat an hour would be an example of
productivity. You can then see if people with good bosses
11. 11
treat more customers per hour than people with
bad bosses.
And what we find is that there’s an enormous range of
productivity based on who your boss is. That is, if you’re
working on your job and you change to someone who has
a history of being a good boss, your productivity definitely
goes up.
A data set like this doesn’t really have the traits of the boss, so
in order to look at the traits of what makes a good boss, we
needed to do a case study. We did a case study on the Royal
Bank of Canada, the biggest bank in Canada with an
enormous workforce and lot of data.
We looked to that to see what the traits of a good boss appear
to be. And there’s a sequence in order to identify the traits of a
good boss. To identify the traits of a good boss, first you have
to tell again whether bosses matter. What we show is that
workers are more engaged in their workplace and are more
productive when they have a good boss, in this case. You
really see that in what’s called engagement data, which is data
that asks do you feel motivated on your job? Do you identify
with your company? Sure enough, those people who are
motivated and identify with their company are higher
performers. Given that they’re high performers, we look to see
what are their bosses doing differently?
WHAT THREE THINGS DO ALL GOOD BOSSES DO?
The first thing they do is they set the vision — what’s the
vision for this company and how do you personally fit into
that vision? That’s what they do for their subordinates. The
next thing they do is drive results. They make sure the teams
and the individuals are productive and feeling that they’re
contributing. They would do this by a lot of teaching and
training of their subordinates, motivating them, those
sorts of things.
The next thing they do is they really manage day-to-day work
flows to make sure that the work flow that you’re getting is
commensurate with what it is you’re doing.
The last thing is they manage career goals. It turns out that
what is incredibly motivating to an individual is for them to
have a vision for where their career is going to go. A good boss
will share that vision with them, give them guidance on where
they’re going, and provide them good feedback to help them
along the path. Most workers are not stagnant, but they have
other aspirations — they want to move on or they just want to
do their day-to-day job well and have that fit into their career.
A good boss will help them do that.
WHAT CAN WE LEARN FROM GOOGLE?
A couple years ago, Google started Project Oxygen and found
that people didn’t like their bosses. They didn’t think they
were useful. There was even a sense that they should have
no bosses within Google. But they found out when they cut
back on the number of bosses, people just went to leaders for
routine tasks, and it was a burden on leaders. They found they
really needed low-level managers, but they needed to find out
what makes a good manager.
Google is interesting because it has so much data on workers’
performance. It has data on the traits of bosses because
Google does these evaluations constantly. It’s a data intense
company. It looked to identify people who manage them and
what their traits are. The traits are really aligned with the
good boss traits we found at the Royal Bank of Canada — you
pay attention to your employees, you give them a vision, you
motivate them, and you set out career goals for them.
Even though we think of Google as being engineers who are
kind of self directed, want to work alone, and not be subject to
the supervision of a boss — when a boss can help them with
their career goals, they’re quite happy to work with a good boss.
DOES THE IMPACT OF A GOOD BOSS LINGER?
After you leave a good boss, does the effect of that good boss
linger on your performance? You can imagine that if you have
a good boss and who trains you how to do your job well, you’re
going to be productive even when you get switched to a
lower-level boss.
We did find that impact actually happens — people’s
productivity lingers. Therefore, our conclusion is that in
that study, we could see that one trait of a boss seems to be
teaching because you’ve learned something that you carry
with you for the rest of your career. That teaching could be
how to do your job or it could be something like how to be
motivated surrounding your career goals.
But in some way or another, a good boss teaches something
that lingers. That’s what we were able to show in our study.
A good boss teaches
something that lingers.
– Kathryn Shaw
![ASSOCIATE DIGITAL DIRECTOR Karen Lee
COPY EDITORS Heidi Beck, Joyce Thomas
ART DIRECTOR & DESIGN Tricia Seibold
PHOTOGRAPHY Elena Zhukova
COVER ILLUSTRATION Christopher DeLorenzo
contents
[04]
Great Leaders Understand the Fundamentals
Managers are often chosen for reasons other than competence
by Elizabeth MacBride
[07]
How to “Lean In” to Power
Power skills and behaviors matter for career success
by Jeffrey Pfeffer
[10]
Three Things All Good Bosses Do
Pay attention to these issues and watch productivity go up
by Kathryn Shaw
Video: Beth Rimbey // Editor: Karen Lee](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7)